Part 10 (1/2)
”Thou hast said it,” he cried, ”and thou alone! Listen, ye people! I did the deed! I smote blood upon the gateways of my kraal; with my own hand I smote it, that I might learn who were the true doctors and who were the false! Now it seems that in the land of the Zulu there is one true doctor--this young man--and of the false, look at them and count them, they are like the leaves. See! there they stand, and by them stand those whom they have doomed--the innocent whom, with their wives and children, they have doomed to the death of the dog. Now I ask you, my people, what reward shall be given to them?”
Then a great roar went up from all the mult.i.tude, ”Let them die, O king!”
”Ay!” he answered. ”Let them die as liars should!”
Now the Isa.n.u.sis, men and women, screamed aloud in fear, and cried for mercy, tearing themselves with their nails, for least of all things did they desire to taste of their own medicine of death. But the king only laughed the more.
”Hearken ye!” he said, pointing to the crowd of us who had been smelt out. ”Ye were doomed to death by these false prophets. Now glut yourselves upon them. Slay them, my children! slay them all! wipe them away! stamp them out!--all! all, save this young man!”
Then we bounded from the ground, for our hearts were fierce with hate and with longing to avenge the terrors we had borne. The doomed slew the doomers, while from the circle of the Ingomboco a great roar of laughter went up, for men rejoiced because the burden of the witch-doctors had fallen from them.
At last it was done, and we drew back from the heap of the dead.
Nothing was heard there now--no more cries or prayers or curses. The witch-finders travelled the path on which they had set the feet of many.
The king drew near to look. He came alone, and all who had done his bidding bent their heads and crept past him, praising him as they went.
Only I stood still, covered, as I was with mire and filth, for I did not fear to stand in the presence of the king. Chaka drew near, and looked at the piled-up heaps of the slain and the cloud of dust that yet hung over them.
”There they lie, Mopo,” he said. ”There lie those who dared to prophecy falsely to the king! That was a good word of thine, Mopo, which taught me to set the snare for them; yet methought I saw thee start when n.o.bela, queen of the witch-doctresses, switched death on thee. Well, they are dead, and the land breathes more freely; and for the evil which they have done, it is as yonder dust, that shall soon sink again to earth and there be lost.”
Thus he spoke, then ceased--for lo! something moved beneath the cloud of dust, something broke a way through the heap of the dead. Slowly it forced its path, pus.h.i.+ng the slain this way and that, till at length it stood upon its feet and tottered towards us--a thing dreadful to look on. The shape was the shape of an aged woman, and even through the blood and mire I knew her. It was n.o.bela, she who had doomed me, she whom but now I had smitten to earth, but who had come back from the dead to curse me!
On she tottered, her apparel hanging round her in red rags, a hundred wounds upon her face and form. I saw that she was dying, but life still flickered in her, and the fire of hate burned in her snaky eyes.
”Hail, king!” she screamed.
”Peace, liar!” he answered; ”thou art dead!”
”Not yet, king. I heard thy voice and the voice of yonder dog, whom I would have given to the jackals, and I will not die till I have spoken.
I smelt him out this morning when I was alive; now that I am as one already dead, I smell him out again. He shall bewitch thee with blood indeed, Chaka--he and Unandi, thy mother, and Baleka, thy wife. Think of my words when the a.s.segai reddens before thee for the last time, king!
Farewell!” And she uttered a great cry and rolled upon the ground dead.
”The witch lies hard and dies hard,” said the king carelessly, and turned upon his heel. But those words of dead n.o.bela remained fixed in his memory, or so much of them as had been spoken of Unandi and Baleka.
There they remained like seeds in the earth, there they grew to bring forth fruit in their season.
And thus ended the great Ingomboco of Chaka, the greatest Ingomboco that ever was held in Zululand.
CHAPTER IX. THE LOSS OF UMSLOPOGAAS
Now, after the smelling out of the witch-doctors, Chaka caused a watch to be kept upon his mother Unandi, and his wife Baleka, my sister, and report was brought to him by those who watched, that the two women came to my huts by stealth, and there kissed and nursed a boy--one of my children. Then Chaka remembered the prophecy of n.o.bela, the dead Isa.n.u.si, and his heart grew dark with doubt. But to me he said nothing of the matter, for then, as always, his eyes looked over my head. He did not fear me or believe that I plotted against him, I who was his dog.
Still, he did this, though whether by chance or design I do not know: he bade me go on a journey to a distant tribe that lived near the borders of the Amaswazi, there to take count of certain of the king's cattle which were in the charge of that tribe, and to bring him account of the tale of their increase. So I bowed before the king, and said that I would run like a dog to do his bidding, and he gave me men to go with me.
Then I returned to my huts to bid farewell to my wives and children, and there I found that my wife, Anadi, the mother of Moosa, my son, had fallen sick with a wandering sickness, for strange things came into her mind, and what came into her mind that she said, being, as I did not doubt, bewitched by some enemy of my house.
Still, I must go upon the king's business, and I told this to my wife Macropha, the mother of Nada, and, as it was thought, of Umslopogaas, the son of Chaka. But when I spoke to Macropha of the matter she burst into tears and clung to me. I asked her why she wept thus, and she answered that the shadow of evil lay upon her heart, for she was sure that if I left her at the king's kraal, when I returned again I should find neither her nor Nada, my child, nor Umslopogaas, who was named my son, and whom I loved as a son, still in the land of life. Then I tried to calm her; but the more I strove the more she wept, saying that she knew well that these things would be so.
Now I asked her what could be done, for I was stirred by her tears, and the dread of evil crept from her to me as shadows creep from the valley to the mountain.
She answered, ”Take me with you, my husband, that I may leave this evil land, where the very skies rain blood, and let me rest awhile in the place of my own people till the terror of Chaka has gone by.”